


Heart of the Wild

by LadyElocin



Category: One Piece
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Fantasy, M/M, May be a bit OOC, Romance, Tiger!Zoro, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-15 01:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14149089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyElocin/pseuds/LadyElocin
Summary: It felt as if I'd fallen down in a chasm wherein I could no longer climb my way back up — a deep, deep hole in the heart of the jungle where thick canopy of trees forbid light to pass through. Consuming me. Consuming me whole into his world.Tiger!Zoro x Sanji





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! So I just watched "Shape Of Water" and it rang something deep inside me. Mysterious and romantically peculiar. My cup of tea. So, perhaps I thought, maybe I could pull the same thing with Zoro and Sanji, right? ;)

**Prologue**

_x x x_

_After that fateful moment when our gaze locked, blue eyes on golden ones. When our hands touched, his sharp nails grazing gently against my skin. When his calm and hollow breaths blew softly on my face, sending a chill down my spine. When his heart pounded faster than any human was capable of, his green fur tickling my palm as I laid my hand lightly on his chest._

_It felt as if I'd fallen down in a chasm wherein I could no longer climb my way back up — a deep, deep hole in the heart of the jungle where thick canopy of trees forbid light to pass through. Consuming me. Consuming me whole into his world._

_His warmth. Those divine line patterns on his skin. His furry ears and tail. His sharp teeth. They were beautiful; exotic yet, beautiful._

_He pressed his palm against my chest and he felt how fast my heart was beating for him. His mere touch had this effect on me and I didn't know what to do._

_There were no exchange of words, spoken languages nor muted sounds._

_Just a single gaze, and our hearts became united._

 

_x x x_

 Art made by [anytramaksnisic](http://anytramaksnisic.tumblr.com). Thank you!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank [savvy-bean](http://savvy-bean.tumblr.com) for beta'ing for me. Love you always!


	2. Golden Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Setting: Medieval AU

I.

 

I'd always been a romantic at heart — singing odes to ladies, composing poems and sketching their lovely curves and rich bosoms.

My father Zeff, smacked my head for it, calling me a delirious fool and a hopeless romantic moron. He became my foster parent after he found me half-dead in an alleyway when I was a child, all skin and bones — starving to death.

I was a war orphan and being seen slumped against a dark corner as my own body ate me, sadly it wasn't an uncommon sight.

The All Blue War had been going on for one hundred years, killing thousands and thousands of people, burning villages and towns into charred heaps. Spilling blood over every inch of the kingdom's earth.

East Blue was the weakest among the Four Blues—the four kingdoms—that was why it was no surprise when the royal family resulted to illegal ways on how to fortify their battlefront. Rumors said that the king hired a witch to mutate animals to use them for battles, as some of the more questionable rumors claimed the royal army was not actually composed of living humans but, dead skeletons wearing armors and waving swords.

Ridiculous, one might say. But what if...?

"Sanji! Stop daydreaming and knead that dough right now!"

"I'm kneading it!" I responded with an exasperated sigh, kneading the dough with both hands.

"Lad's thinking about mythical creatures again, eh, Head Cook?" Patty snickered, nudging Zeff jovially.

"Shut up, Patty," I hissed.

"He's a little rascal. Don't mind him," Zeff replied, too busy with his dishes to pay mind to his antics.

"Rather than that, his head's probably full of indecent thoughts 'bout the lasses in the brothel," one of the cooks, Carne, added with a teasing smirk.

Rolling my eyes, I said, "If you don't consider the impossible, then that's the time when you'll run out of options."

"Come on, kid." Stirring the boiling broth in the pot, Carne added, "Mermaids and werewolves aren't real. That's why they're called 'mythical.'"

"Yeah, they're folklores. A bunch of old tales from the elders in the kingdom. They don't exist," Patty agreed.

"Well, have you seen one?" I said, my hackles rising.

"No—"

"Then you can't say that something doesn't exist just because you haven't seen it." Putting the dough inside the kiln, I wiped my hands on my smock angrily and walked my way out of the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Zeff asked.

"Flour!" I replied and pushed the door open.

It was a half-lie. Because what I wanted the most at this moment was to get out of that suffocating kitchen. I loved cooking, because food was the one that saved my life. I grew up with Zeff doing all sorts of dishes around me but, I'd always thought that I was meant for something more. Somewhere far from burning furnaces, raw meat and boiling pots.

Somewhere... magical.

Shaking my head as I made my way toward the storage room of the castle, I berated myself for being obsessed with the ideas of "seeing the unseen" or "the mysteries of the unknown."

Ever since Nami told me about that horde of fishmen who slaughtered her village near the Eastern River, I couldn't stop thinking that, maybe, those mythical creatures really did exist. She was called demented because of her claim, that she was just drowning in sorrow for losing her family and friends, that the nightmare was consuming her. But when she looked at me with those tear-stained, brown eyes, all I could see was a sane and suffering woman. That all the words coming out of her mouth were nothing but mere _truths_.

After getting the bag of flour from the stockroom, as I walked below the overbridge, a brigade of soldiers passed by with lit torches in their hands. Some of them were wounded, terribly so, considering the amount of blood staining their helmets and armors.

They were pulling a prison wagon, not barred but a whole box made out of strong steel. There were strange noises inside, like dull purrs of a stray cat in the sidewalks.

I heard a bang from the inside and I jolted in surprise, the small bag of flour slipping a bit from my hold.

There was a very small window slit at the topmost part of the wagon and when the soldier holding a torch walked a little slower to talk to his comrade, the light of the flames going with him, my heart pounded inside my chest when I saw a pair of eyes gazing through the slit.

They were gold, the purest and shiniest gold that I'd ever seen. They were glowing marbles in the midst of darkness and my breath hitched inside my throat. It was only a fleeting moment when our gazes locked for both of us were going our opposite ways.

My head followed that pair of eyes as I walked away, watching the wagon disappear as the soldiers rounded a guard tower. My hands held on tightly on the bag of flour inside my arms, the encounter replaying repeatedly inside my head like a chant. Again, and again, and again.

And each time I closed my eyes, I could see nothing but that prison wagon and the mysterious owner of those penetrating golden eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic will be a bit OOC because, yes, Sanji is a cook in the story, but he's dreaming of becoming something different.
> 
> I typed the update through my phone. Haha. Some chapters will be short, others will be long, depending on the amount of inspiration that I have that time. Cause, honestly, this fic isn't really planned. Like the idea just popped inside my head (and cause I got inspired by SOW) but I hope I can make this an interesting read for you guys. :)


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